


See You In Hell, Sweetheart.

by amorremanet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Community: spnraritiesfest, F/F, Name Changes, Rape/Non-con References
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-24
Updated: 2012-04-24
Packaged: 2017-11-04 06:40:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 24
Words: 14,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/390899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amorremanet/pseuds/amorremanet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bela's used to demons and Ruby used to be human, but each manages to defy the other's expectations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Story of Isaac.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peachpai](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=peachpai).



The police station's cold — freezing, even — it's not even summer yet; there's no reason for the fans to be on. But Bela keeps her mouth shut, stays still in her seat by the vending machines, tries to ignore the noise around her.

That's her name now, she's decided. She only has ten years to live, and she doesn't want to spend any of them as Abigail Talbot, only daughter of some wealthy good-for-nothings, perpetually lonely, her father's sex-toy of the past six years. Abigail was weak. Abigail let herself be used and broken and insulted. Abigail couldn't take care of herself — but Bela can. Bela had the nerve to get her parents murdered, and thereby save herself.

Even these clothes feel all wrong, now. Abigail cocooned herself in demure sweaters and her grey school skirts, hid from the world in white stockings and black Mary Janes. Bela requires something bolder. Something befitting a  _woman_ , not a scared little girl.

She hears some of what these people say, and it all strikes her funny. Like they're discussing someone else. All the street cops and detectives muttering about _poor little Abigail, can you even believe… poor, poor thing. Fifteen and an orphan, I can't even fathom…_  (That's right, Bela thinks as she buries her nose in a battered copy of  _The Silver Chair_. Of course they have pity for the  _poor thing_  who was too spineless to say  _no, Daddy, stop it_.)

She does a good job of pretending to read — it's a skill she perfected all the times she had to play like she couldn't hear her father raging around or getting into the liquor cabinet. She feigns like she's actually interested in the idiot Pevensies and their magical play-land. Like the words going around the real world are some incomprehensible buzzing, and in so doing, she hides all the mental notes she's making.

 _Foster parents_  — that phrase sticks out at her first. Leave it to Johnny Law to think putting her in some new home will help. Shunting her off to new parents who will be every bit as horrid as her real ones, if not worse… Not if Bela can help it.

 _Start investigating the girl_  comes next, and then:  _she was the only other person at the home before they left… we're still parsing through the evidence, but if the brake lines really were…_  And Bela doesn't hang around to hear the rest. The hard soles of her shoes smack the station's floor. She even hesitates at the door, hand hovering over the knob, looking back to see if any of the badge-bedecked morons even noticed her absence or this ever-so- _daring_  escape attempt.

None of them have. Most seem like they haven't heard a thing. The one idling behind the desk hasn't even looked up from his paper.

So much for the police. Bela slips out into the London streets, lets herself get swept up in a crowd. Lets the rush of all this hit her: her parents are dead, she walked out on the cops (who don't have enough proof to go after her, can't get enough of it either, if the demon did its job correctly) — she doesn't notice anything until she crashes into a gentleman, some ten blocks away from where she started.

His suit is crisp, his smile poisonous and sweet, and she only stops stammering out apologies when she sees his eyes flash red.

The chill worms down to her bones. Nausea follows — wrenches around her gut, makes her certain she's going to vomit. But she made a  _Deal_  — the other demon said ten years — it's barely even been two days—

"Name's Crowley," he chuckles, slipping his arm around her shoulders and guiding her down the street. "Call me Uncle Alex for the time being, though, love."

She glances up at his too kindly-looking face, memories of the strange, red-eyed girl floating around her mind, a million questions nagging at her to ask them. The only one that makes its way out is a request to know where they're going.

Crowley shrugs and says, "Just for lunch and a chat, darling. I'm representing a power much greater than myself, and my, my, my, do they have an offer for you."

Bela swallows and runs her tongue over her orthodontia-corrected teeth. With a sigh, she whispers, "What sort of offer?"


	2. Misery Loves Company.

Returning from a successful job always puts a smirk on Bela's face. The kick of defrauding some sap, the pulse-pounding thrill of victory, the feeling of three protective medallions buried in her jeans' hip pocket, rubbing against her thigh. On the list of things she expects to find when she gets back to her motel room, though… some barely legal-looking blonde ranks just below Prince William with an engagement ring.

Even when the girl — the  _demon_  — flashes her black eyes, she's much more welcome than the Prince, anyway. Demons, Bela's spent the past several years dealing with intimately. They falsified her adoption papers. Crowley educated her, helped her graduate from favored member of his retinue to his personal cat-burglar and procuress of magical items. Royalty, any royalty, as far as she can see, are nothing more than wastes of space and oxygen.

But, as Bela tries explaining, there's no time for nattering around and even less for distractions: "Some idiot brothers went and opened a Devil's Gate out in Wyoming," she says, packing up her suitcase without regard for her visitor or the girl's reasons for being out here. "Crowley has a veritable scavenger hunt of nonsense for me to find him, every single one a top priority, so whatever's on your mind? It is not my problem, and you will need a considerable offer for this fact to change."

The demon-girl scoffs. "Oh, sure, kitten. I mean, yeah, Crowley's intel is  _obviously_  the best out there.  _Clearly_ , he knows what he's talking about."

"I don't see why he wouldn't. He  _is_  the King of the Crossroads."

"The rest of us call him Lucky the Leprechaun behind his back, if that makes any difference to you."

Bela looks up from folding one of her shirts, but just to arch an eyebrow and sneer at her little visitor. "I'd say that it reflects more on your lack of maturity than on anything about Crowley."

"What's he offering you, sweetheart? Little continuances or something? Find him some voodoo rabbit's foot and you get an extra week tacked onto your Deal?"

Bela shivers, can't react in time to hide it. She wrinkles her brow and frowns. The question lurking in the front of her mind is simple: how does this nobody demon know about the rabbit's foot that Crowley has her going after? — but she just gives the girl a smug little laugh, busies herself with folding up her clothes and hiding her latest acquisitions between a toiletries case and a pair of sensible heels. Spins some bullshit about how her jobs are top secret, discussed only between herself and her clients, and how she has no idea where the girl heard what she did, but whoever told her anything was clearly lying—

The girl slams Bela's suitcase on her fingers. "God, you talk too much when you're insecure," she snaps, by way (Bela presumes) of explaining herself.

"And you stay too long where you aren't welcome," Bela huffs. "I would say that we're approximately equal here,  _kitten_."

"Not even a little bit. …We can't be equal when I'm here to save your ass."

Bela's turn to scoff — and of course, she takes the chance. Even as she throws the suitcase's cover back to the mattress, even as she returns to fussing with her things, she can't give up a chance to get the last word. "My arse is none of your concern, Blondie. Especially not when I have no need of saving."

"I can get you out of that Deal permanently."

The bitch is lying — she has to be — demons  _lie_ , and Bela knows that… but she still looks up into the blonde's knowing smirk, and drops the shirt she's working on.

With a sigh, she says, "I'm listening."


	3. Walking In My Shoes.

"So, why'd you do it, Bela?"

She sighs and looks over to Ruby in the passenger's seat. They're driving on some backroad, well past midnight, playing Nina Simone through the ipod jack, heading back to New York from another of Crowley's errands. Ruby licks at her teeth, brushes her fingers over the gloves like she's ready to eat them. And as Ruby ghosts her fingers over the ugly, brown cracked leather things, Bela catches herself wondering what the demon's hands feel like on human skin, if they're stronger than they look.

"Don't wreck them up, sweetheart," she tells Ruby with a huff. "Lucky the Leprechaun will pitch a fit if we damage the goods."

Ruby's chuckle has a dry quality to it. Desiccated. Even coupled with her starry smile, it echoes around the car, drowns out the music, leaves Bela aware of just how the tires scrape against the road, of just how fast her heart his beating, of a too-recognizable, hollow feeling in her chest. The faint glow from the radio casts shadows on creases and lines that Bela knows she hasn't seen on Ruby's face before — deep hollows creep in underneath her eyes and for a flash of a moment, she seems to have a skull for a face.

And then she's normal again. So normal. Exactly as she was… Bela couldn't have seen what she thought she did. Must have been her imagination. Then Ruby asks her question again.  _So, why'd you do it, Bela?_

Bela sighs. "Do you need to know it? Will it get me off the hook sooner to write you a manifesto?"

Ruby shakes her head 'no.' "Just curious."

They round a sharp curve and, when the road straightens out again, Bela floors it — pushes her little engine for all the horsepower it has, can't even hear her own breath over the noise. And buried underneath it all, she whispers, "That's for me to know and you to let alone."


	4. Girl Anachronism.

Keeping Ruby in the dark about her reasons doesn't keep Bela from suffering when they resurface. She's just some measly human, after all. Hell's cat-burglar. Crowley's errand girl. Some favored toy of Lilith herself. That's plenty of responsibility, and with all the miles she logs on her Mercedes… a girl needs to sleep at some point.

And when she does, the motel rooms and her flat in Queens and her backseat all melt away into irrelevance. Every floor becomes the hardwood of her father's house. All the windows draw their shades, even when they don't have any. Regardless of where she lays her head, Bela always finds herself back in that room — hears his footsteps bang up the corridor and the bedroom door slam shut — His whiskey-heavy breath crashes into her, the stench crawls down her throat before he jerks her up from the bed, forces his lips on hers — That's when she chokes on the taste — He shoves her down.

She hits the mattress, knows better than to try and run, or argue, but when he covers her, her lungs seize up. Like poison, he caresses her cheek. Her heart pounds as his fingers clench around her wrists. Instinct takes over. She struggles. She tries to move her arms, but he has her pinned. She tries to scream. She tries to call out for someone, or even just ask  _Daddy, what are you doing_  like she did the first time, but she can't drag a sound from her throat. Just a hack here, a splutter there, and he senses what she's set her mind on doing, the rebellious frost congealing in her chest.

He lets one of her arms go, seizes her jaw instead, grips it so tightly, he could dent her bones. She wonders, briefly, if it's possible to do that — and for allowing herself to fall out of his reality, he bites her lower lip. Hard. Kisses her as a hyena going at a corpse. She tries to kick him. He only laughs. His fingers trail down her neck as he calls her slut, and tramp, and says she can tell whoever she wants about this, about every time he's violated her, don't go expecting him to stop her.

"Doesn't matter if you do or not," he whispers, nuzzling against her ear, pinning her to the headboard with his shoulders, his hips. "No one's going to believe a word that comes out of your whore mouth, Abby darling. Not a single one of them. Because they know that you're just asking for it, don't you know? Now settle down and be a good girl for Daddy."

The nightmares dog her night in and night out, and she always wakes up alone, drenched in a cold sweat and too terrified to move, like maybe he'll get out of Hell and find her, lurk in her shadows until he sees an opportunity to strike… Until one night, when she doesn't wake up alone anymore.

Until one night when she wakes up to Ruby's arms around her, Ruby's fingers brushing up and down her back or smoothing through her hair, and Ruby's icicle breath whispering some incantation Bela doesn't recognize, whose syllables all sound like  _sssh, sweetheart, everything will be alright._


	5. Jane Says.

"They're morons, the pair of them. Morons, and trouble, and nothing more."

"You're just bitter because the little one has a crush on you."

Bela wrinkles her nose and frowns across the table at Ruby's smirk. It's ten days on from the debacle with the rabbit's foot — Crowley's only just calmed down from its loss and the ensuing reminders of who does she think she works for, and he's sorry, but is he losing his mind with age or did he hear Bela express some rebellious notions of letting her assignments fall to pieces because of some idiots in jeans and flannel.

They're the last thing Bela wants to talk about, Heckle and Jeckle Winchester. Especially now, when Bela's out with Ruby, down in Manhattan, in a back corner at an Asian fusion place in Midtown, in the midst of what should be a pleasant evening, if not a romantic one. Romantic's asking for a bit too much, she thinks. Demons don't do romance, in Bela's experience, and conveniently, she doesn't either. And yet, she purses her lips and glares as though she could actually bore a hole through Ruby's chest for even  _thinking_  to bring those boys up.

Instead, Bela sips her wine and scoffs. "I shot his brother in the shoulder. Not to mention threatening his life. Somehow, sweetheart? I think Dean would rather see me six feet under in a pine box than naked in his bed."

Ruby nearly chokes on her mai-tai and says, "I meant  _Sam_ , Bels."

This gets a chuckle, nearly a laugh, plus the insistence that it isn't  _her_  fault the word "little" has multiple meanings — "One of which would refer to height, in which case Dean certainly qualifies." Bela shrugs, tries to swallow another laugh (or at least muffle it in her glass), just to keep from encouraging Ruby any. She says next, "As for Sam… he  _might_  want me, but I'd bet you anything that there's nothing emotional about it. Boys who look like kicked puppies… They fuck like tigers, and then run for the hills. So I would hardly call anything he feels for me a  _crush_."

"You just don't want to believe that anybody else falls in love at first sight."

"That's because they  _don't_ , gorgeous — science can prove it. Besides, I don't want him. There's no fun in pursuing someone who wears his heart on his sleeve like that."

Something flickers across Ruby's face — a frown here, one slight wrinkle creasing her brow — but then she shakes her head and it disappears. She polishes off her drink and eyes the circulating waiters, no doubt searching for their spring rolls and calamari. Bela drums her fingers on the glass's stem and tries to focus only on the tinkling sound her nails make. Not on the still-clear tension in Ruby's jaw, or the sudden drop in temperature she feels, or the way that Ruby fails to be offhand in saying:

"Sam'd treat you better than Crowley does, I can say that much for him. How're those bruises doing, anyway?"

Bela purses her lips, tugs at her long black sleeves. Drops her free hand to her thigh and smoothes out her skirt — brushes her fingers over a lingering spot of tenderness — underneath her dress and stockings, the mark's purplish. Fading, but even so… It's better than it was yesterday, she reminds herself. Getting banged around by demons isn't an extended weekend at a chalet in the Swiss Alps. It isn't even a trip to Disneyland. She's lucky she got out with only bruises.

"It's fine, Ruby. I promise." And she falls silent on that lie, smiles a thanks to the waiter with their appetizers — but once he's out of earshot, Bela hisses, "If I couldn't handle it, I would tell you so."


	6. Original Sin.

Bela didn't know that demons could get drunk.

She always assumed that they couldn't — Crowley likes his scotch, but he's never seemed even a little inebriated in her presence.

And yet, as they leave the restaurant and slink into the flow of the foot-traffic, Ruby's hanging on her as though she's become a life raft. Thank God she thought ahead and got hotel reservations. Aside from having a guaranteed parking space, it saves Bela from having to try and drive when she's tired, and when Ruby's all liquored up like this, and when the last thing Bela wants to do is think.

Bela can't say that she minds it, though — especially not the part where she has a Hell-spawn clinging to her. Ruby's hand is the perfect size to splay across her hip; Ruby's chin fits right in on Bela's shoulder, and the fruity cocktail scent of her breath makes Manhattan reek ever so slightly less. It's still an over-glorified garbage dump, and tourists still clog up the sidewalks, stopping in the middle of things to take snapshots of what they've mistaken for Times Square by night, and as Bela drags the little demon past an alley, she can still smell the putrescent, ever-present stench of pee and mold and degradation.

She still has a heavy feeling about her, the one she always gets when she remembers what's coming to her, like that of Atlas's globe weighing down her shoulders —and she ought to feel something, with Ruby slumped against her side, refusing to move on her own power… But even with Ruby slack against her, playing the deadweight, Bela's certain that her steps come easier, bouncing along behind her to match the airy lightness in her chest. And she maneuvers around the other pedestrians more deftly than seems normal…

Maybe they're just giving her a wider path because they think she's gay, or because they think they'll catch some homosexual disease from getting close to her.

Maybe she should pull Ruby into a torrid kiss like those exhibitionists on all the New Year's Eve telecasts, shove her tongue down Ruby's throat and make the morons from Bumfuck, Indiana (or wherever) sorry that they came to New York City.

They come to a crosswalk and a red light, and as they wait for it to change, Bela talks herself out of trying to traumatize anyone. Ruby yawns, and nuzzles at her, and although Bela wants to pay attention to this, she shivers. Feels an unnatural chill trace its way up her spine. Glances across the street at a young couple walking with their daughter, and she could swear she sees the girl's eyes flash white, gleam below the streetlamp the same way that Lilith's gleam.

All of a sudden, her chest tightens up around her lungs and guilt drops like a brick into her stomach. She clenches her fingers tighter around Ruby's hip, moves Ruby's hand off of her hip and up to her shoulder —she can't take any risks, not tonight, not when Ruby can't even defend herself. The light turns green, and Bela darts off, refusing to get caught, refusing to even look back and make sure they're not getting followed. She moves as fast as her heels and her charge will let her, doesn't stop until four blocks later, when she fakes a smile for the girl behind the front desk, lingers there just long enough to take the room key.

And she knows better than to fall for anything once they're in the elevator. She knows to keep her distance when Ruby straightens up, and smirks, and says how chivalrous Bela is, carrying her all this way. She knows she's obligated to keep Ruby from leaning against the 'hold elevator' button, to keep them moving toward their fifteenth-floor room, rather then getting them paused between the tenth and the eleventh. She knows not to return the kiss she gets, no matter how deep it goes, or how sweet the taste of Ruby's mouth is, or how gently Ruby's fingers trail through her hair. She knows without question that Crowley wouldn't approve of this, that he'd have to tell Lilith, that Lilith doesn't like to share her playthings…

But maybe Bela's had a little much to drink herself. Maybe she's not intoxicated, not legally, not even a bit… but maybe she's just off enough to indulge some bad ideas.

But maybe she can get away with that excuse. Maybe she can even make herself believe it.

But Ruby backs Bela into a corner without separating their mouths. But Ruby pins her there, shoulder-to-shoulder, somehow avoiding Bela's bruises. But Ruby's hand falls to her hip again and something stirs in Bela, flutters around her agitated stomach, tries to set her insides alight. Even pressing her thigh into the demon's, even bucking her hips, even pulling Ruby's face closer to her own, Bela knows better… but she wants Ruby. That feeling's unmistakable.

She grazes her teeth over Ruby's lower lip, trails her fingers down Ruby's cheek and neck, flings her arms around Ruby's shoulders when the elevator jerks back to life and shudders up to their floor.

"Hang the damn rules," Bela mutters, and ignoring the confusion on Ruby's face, she takes her girl by the wrist, drags her down the hall to room 1512.


	7. Ruby, Don't Take Your Love To Town.

Nigh on literally, they fall into bed — for all she's trying to move on her own, Ruby tilts and falters, stumbling around on heeled shoes and booze-weakened ankles. It's Bela's legs that give way and trip, though, and as she careens toward the mattress, Ruby grabs her dress. Not trying to stop her descent, but intent on plummeting with her.

Ruby crashes into Bela, and maybe she's ticklish, or maybe the cocktails are getting to her more than she thought they were, but Bela has to laugh at this. It's a hard laugh, one that punches her in the stomach when she tries not to let it out. Her whole body trembles. She rolls over to her side. And she wonders if there's anyone in the next room over, if she can wake them up just by laughing. It only stops when Ruby kisses Bela as though resuscitating her.

She loses track of this kiss, just throws herself into it, into the taste of Ruby's mouth, into the feeling of pulling her back in every time she moves to breathe. Bela only remembers to turn the light on because her necklace clinks against it when Ruby tears it off, tosses it to the bedside table. She booked two queens; the second sits unruffled and dejected as Ruby fumbles around. She's trying to toe off her shoes, but all she does is kick the comforter and blanket down to the floor.

Bela laughs at that, snaking her fingers up Ruby's neck, up to cup Ruby's jaw, and she pulls Ruby down into another kiss. "You do that for everyone," she asks, "or just for me… Don't think too hard about answering it. Improvise, sweetheart."

Ruby's definition of improvisation doesn't involve words. She bites Bela's lip, hard, like she's trying to draw blood, leave a bruise — her hands fall to Bela's shoulders and, rather than staying there, they shove Bela down to the mattress. Bela gasps, lets her heels fall off and land on the heap of bed-dressings. Before she knows which way is up, Ruby's perched on her hips, ghosting her hands up and down Bela's sides, pausing her to caress Bela's breasts, work her thumb at the flesh until she finds the right spots to make Bela sigh, gasp, start to moan.

She keeps her hands on the outside, though, resting on the fabric, brushing over Bela's curves but never even toying with going underneath the dress. One moment, she flirts with Bela's neckline, nudges it down… then jerks her hand away and slides it down to Bela's nipple. Vaguely, in the back of Bela's imagination, it occurs to her that, in a way, they're playing dress-up; they're dressed up as lovers, playing with the concept but not actually being them. And going with this, Ruby's being respectful of her — teasing at Bela's tits, but never making good, not even just letting Bela have the feeling of skin against skin.

She's probably trying to be respectful, anyway. Because they aren't lovers, not really; they're barely even friends. And it's going far outside their usual roles… Of course, they can't indulge too much.

Not that this stops Ruby from working Bela over in just the right way.

Not that  _that_  keeps Bela from trying to keep her wits about her, trying not to wake the neighbors… Ruby pulls a face when Bela stifles one of her noises (one that wanted to be a moan) — she tightens her grip on Bela's breast, whispers that it's okay for Bela to enjoy herself. "So what, I'm a demon," she says, setting both hands to work on Bela's chest, fondling her as if offering a prayer. "I promise: I'll always try to do right by you. And if you don't want me, then that's okay. You only have to tell me so, and I'll get out."

She yanks Ruby down again, pulls her into a kiss, splays her flat against Bela's own body, reaches down to grab at Ruby's ass. Passivity is death. Bela learned that the hard way… She must never, ever be passive.

And yet, come morning, she doesn't raise her voice to stop Ruby from leaving. Just to ask where she's going and when she'll be back. And when she says it's to fix some pistol for the Winchesters, Bela can't help thinking that it'd do her good to hunt those condescending bastards down and skin them alive for getting Ruby's attention.


	8. I Wish I Was A Lesbian.

"He turned down an offer of  _angry sex_? Angry sex with  _you_?"

Bela rolls her eyes, reaches over to tousle Ruby's bangs. "He was too busy patronizing me to actually take me up on it — not that this is at  _all_  unusual for him."

Ruby sighs and slumps against the other wall, opposite Bela and watching her while fussing with the bendy straw in her can of gas station soda. She lets one of her legs dangle to the floor, but stretches the other one out across the backseat until her toes nudge at Bela's thigh. "Sam does that too — the patronizing thing. All, 'you're a demon' this, and, 'well, I guess you're helpful for now but you're still a demon,' that, like I'm really going to forget that I'm a  _demon_."

"Sam's really like that behind closed doors, then? Pity… I thought he had some manners."

Bela huffs and helps herself to a swig of the sale-price, lukewarm, domestic champagne that probably ought to have come out of a damn juice-box, for what it cost. With no one else around to hold her to any standards, she barely has the presence of mind to keep herself from chugging it, and maybe, she thinks, that would make the swill taste better. And to think: it's the best thing she could get in the only nearby crummy backwoods small town that had a liquor store open on Sunday. It's folksy, the way all the other shops try to hold to any notion they can find of superiority — adorable in the way that anyone trying too hard to be what they're not is adorable in their failure.

The way it's adorable for her and Ruby to be sprawled across the backseat, giving each other odd little smiles or looks when they think the other isn't watching. Playing at some kind of domesticity. And it can't be anything else they're playing at, not that Bela can see. Maybe they're playing at love — Bela could accept that reading of things. They'd have to be playing at it, after all: Ruby's a demon and Bela's just resolved to make herself incapable of that pesky little emotion. It only causes problems. (And the umbrella term "love" doesn't cover the way her chest warms up at the sight of Ruby's smile.)

"So much for the big, bad Winchesters of myth and legend," Bela says with a sigh. "One of them's so pig-headed, he actually purports not to be damaged, and the other one's a pretentious, racist dick. Charming."

Ruby shrugs and reaches for the bag of Cheetos. "I mean, he's a little more open-minded than Dean about it, but not by that much. Flash black eyes at those boys and your intentions don't even matter anymore — all you matter to them is that you should die."

"Intentions don't really matter to any man, Ruby — or did they back in the Renaissance? Wasn't it all a distinction between flashing one's ankles and  _accidentally_ flashing one's ankles?"

This doesn't get the rise out of Ruby that Bela had intended. She doesn't even giggle. Tilts her head, yes, and furrows her brow like there's a reference that's just gone flying over her head — Bela tries explaining it for her, but that expression hangs around. "Mostly, we were too busy trying to not  _die_ ," Ruby points out. "I mean… between the Plague and the witch-hunters, not to mention everyone crying about how the end was nigh…"

"Yes, of course, because the Four Horsemen were really involved in all of that rubbish from the history books."

"They'll be involved with the  _rubbish_  kicking around this world if no one  _freaking stops them_ ," she says with a drawl that doesn't quite achieve its goal of mocking Bela. "I'm serious, Bels. The storm brewing, the plans my guys have kicking around… They're big.  _Huge_ … like,  _cosmic_  huge. And maybe War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death weren't kicking around for real back in my day, but they're on the menu and if Lilith gets her way? If Azazel's plans go through? We're all going to be knee-deep in destruction."

Bela shrugs, and supposes that it'd have to happen anyway. "Besides, quick and painful's a good sight better than letting the universe live out to its eventual heat death."

"And if you go to Hell… it's not going to  _be_  quick and painful. Slow and painful's more like it—"

"Because time's different in Hell. So you've explained."

"We'd have an easier time of things if you'd just  _listen_  to me."

"Maybe." Bela throws back another swig of champagne. She's not nearly intoxicated enough to be having this conversation. "But I wouldn't take it personally… it isn't just you. I don't trust anybody." Ruby mutters something about wishing Bela'd trust  _her_ , and Bela knocks her head into the window. "If wishes were horses, Ruby… We could work out an offer of angry sex if you're feeling more opportunistic than Dean was."

Ruby doesn't say anything. She just slouches back against her own window, her expression inscrutable from in the shadows.


	9. China Girl.

"You really don't know whom you're messing with, do you, little Abby?"

Bela can feel her pulse everywhere in her body. It rings in her ears, bangs around her chest — and all she wants is to hold onto her side, where she's bleeding, where Lilith went at her with the enchanted knife (some antique, irridium blade with charms and sigils scratched into its flat edges, Lord only knows what they're supposed to do or why Lilith wants it; Bela didn't ask, she just did her job)…

These negotiations could've gone better.

Bela hates this feeling — the cold marble floor beneath her knees and forearms, the ache she gets in her back from spending so long bent over, the freezing caress as tiny fingers trail up and down the back of her neck, the jerking sensation in her stomach, like she's on a rollercoaster that just won't stop. She hates, more than all of these things, the knowledge that she's powerless to do anything. Whatever plans she could make, whatever brief advances… she still looks up into the face of some little girl whose life is never going to be the same.

Whoever this girl is, wherever she came from, she's barely nine years old, with blonde spiral curls and a babydoll dress… and, in an instant, her wide, green eyes find themselves replaced by the shining white of the demon who owns Bela's soul.

Lilith makes a cooing noise, whispering things at Bela as though she's talking to a baby, or a puppy — a disobedient puppy that's pissed itself on the rug. The child's hand snakes down Bela's neck. The fingers trail along her jaw and Lilith nudges Bela's face up, grips onto her chin and  _makes_  her hold this eye contact. Lilith pauses now, looking Bela over, licking her lips and teeth… and the way that her mouth twists around leaves Bela colder than she feels with Lilith's fingers on her skin. Colder than she's felt in rooms with Crowley and his extended entourage.

"Kitten," Lilith sighs, "you just keep misbehaving… How are you ever going to get what you want from me if you can't play by the rules?"

"You keep  _changing_  them—"

"Only because you make me do it!" Lilith's eyes glint darkly and slip back to her vessel's green. "Didn't I tell you to stay away from Ruby?"


	10. Nine Lives.

Lilith's word should keep them separated — she's effective like that. If not her word, then her goons should at least keep tabs on Ruby, seeing as she's apparently so important.

But she makes it to Bela's next motel room. Bela wakes up from her nightmares with Ruby's icy breath on the back of her neck, Ruby's arms wrapped around her… And she can't think of any words that would make explaining the situation easier.

So she doesn't. She lets it alone, leaves the questions of where she's been and what happened there and is everything okay hanging in the air between herself and Ruby, unanswered and barely acknowledged as they hit the road. She lets Ruby pick the music — inexplicably, she throws on one of Bela's recordings of  _Aida_ — and they don't talk for several hours.

When they stop for gas, Ruby's questions start up again and not all of them get ignored — Bela gladly tells her where Crowley's sent her this time, what she's supposed to steal and from whom… But Bela can't find a reason why one of their times together should end up spoiled. It's not like they have that long.

Besides, it's not a matter of honesty: Ruby's kept any promises she's made, but even so, she's a demon. Bela just lies to everyone, regardless of who they are or why she has to do it. What matters is what they make of the time Bela has left. What matters is that Ruby swears she knows some kind of way to circumvent demonic contracts, get Bela off the hook and out of Lilith's claws.

What matters is that, when they get to the motel that they're calling home tonight, Ruby lays Bela down and stops asking where she got the new wound that's on her side, who did it and with what. She unwraps Bela's bandages, applies some salve she made herself with some laundry list of magical properties. And once the wound's been treated, she covers it up again. She pretends it's not there. She kisses Bela gently, with a kind of care that no one else would bother wasting on someone who's got less than a year left on this godforsaken planet.

She takes Bela's ankles, nudges her to the edge of the bed, and tugs at Bela's panties as though being too rough might break them. She eases Bela open, applies her tongue with a similar care, a craftsman's deftness and attention to detail… Even when finding Bela's clit doesn't take her long, Ruby doesn't take this as some indication that her work's done here and that all she needs to do is assault this one spot. She licks at every surface, tongues deeper than she ought to be able to reach. Slips her nails in here or there, applying pressure enough to make Bela gasp but not to draw blood. She doesn't bite at Bela's clit, but catches it between her teeth and plays with it so sweetly, puts  _time_  and  _effort_  into making Bela's heartbeat race, into riling her up, into making her moan, gasp, whisper,  _Please, Ruby, please…_

But what matters most is not this encounter, or the fact that Ruby can disappear for days but always,  _always_ , comes back. It's not even the mixed releases that flood Bela's body — the rush and momentary pain of her tension working itself out, the warmth of a pent-up orgasm, the chill that accompanies everything Ruby does.

What matters most — what's  _always_  mattered most — is that Bela gets knocked down and doesn't stay there. That she might not always land on her feet, but that she claws her way back to standing anyway.


	11. There's Never Gonna Be An Intermission.

Bela's birthday passes and escapes the world's notice. No one sends her presents or congratulates her on surviving another rotation of the sun. Vaguely, she supposes that there's only one person who even knows what day it is, and Crowley only tends to show up when Bela makes a delivery or earns herself a reprimand.

In the spirit of celebrating, she buys herself a nice hotel room for once. She brings an overpriced bottle of tequila with her, and takes the evening off from chasing after her latest round of smoke and mirrors. Just for the Hell of indulging in something, and alone in her motel room, she gets herself blackout drunk. When she comes to, she's dangling off the bed and some channel of infomercials is blaring at her, trying to sell her a Time-Life music anthology… Something or other about celebrating Woodstock and the Sixties.

She sighs —  _how pathetic_. Rolling her eyes makes her head protest, trying to sit up sends a sharp pain up to her temples, but it's not Bela's fault that those people on the television are trying too hard. Judging from her cellphone's call history, Bela's alcohol-induced bad decisions involved buying some other nonsense. She chuckles, and on the complimentary notepad, she scribbles a reminder to call those numbers back and cancel her orders. Or try to, anyway. She can't even remember what she bought or what aliases she used; they might not  _let_  her cancel the shit.

Her head's alternately throbbing and swimming, but Bela wastes no time in cleaning herself up, heading out to the car, getting back to work. For several hours, she drives alone, drowning out her thoughts with The Clash, then Marianne Faithfull, Billie Holliday, The Velvet Underground, her recording of  _The Threepenny Opera_  that has a pitiful translation but compensates with featuring Bea Arthur… Nothing helps. She always ends up remembering that, this time next year, she won't get to watch the leaves change color, or drive up and down the Eastern Seaboard, performing fake seances or taking Gert out for dinner and drinks.

This time next year, she'll be in Hell — and for a moment, she could swear that she feels the flames lapping at her back, that she hears Lilith's high-pitched, manic laughter welcoming her to her  _new_  home, her  _real_  home…

When she stops for gas and a supply check, Bela nearly forgets to turn off her car, just dashes for the restroom, intent on drowning herself in cold water if she has to — anything to remind herself of where reality is, and that she's damned but that she's not dead yet.

A few splashes from the sink do the job.

The water gets her back to her proper senses, for all it doesn't let her calm down. Taking meditative breaths, she paces through the mini-mart's aisles of snack food, motor oil, battered boxes of tampons… She loses track of time. Intentionally, at that. All she wants is to keep herself grounded, keep herself composed… Bela Talbot doesn't crack under pressure, not even when she'd prefer that to carrying on.

She resolves herself in this, but it doesn't get to last: Ruby's waiting for her outside, sitting on the hood of Bela's car and holding a white cardboard box. Once Bela's close enough, Ruby bids her look inside the thing… And at the sight of a red velvet cake, its cream cheese icing, and the sloppy, pink frosting inscription,  _Happy Birthday, Bela_ , she coughs. Allows herself to cry. Plants a kiss on Ruby before she can even consider asking what the Hell is wrong.


	12. I Put A Spell On You.

Bela finds the first one underneath her motel room pillow — a brown scrap canvas, tied up with a string, like a little bag, and when she opens it up, she finds an assortment of herbs that belong in a witch's garden. Or the homemade dinner of someone with a taste for garlic and spices.

Aside from the fact that it somehow got into her room, it's an unimpressive thing, barely notable as a charm. Bela couldn't even get a hundred-spot for this Witchcraft 101 nonsense. Everything she knows about this matter — about hex-bags and what goes into them — mostly amounts to knowing which charms she can sell, and this one looks like little more than rudimentary protection from evil. Even Sam and Dean could put it together, if they put their minds to it.

She salts and burns the lot in the parking lot, and marks it down as a one-off occurrence. Perhaps she simply crossed paths with a white witch who enjoyed picking locks.

The second one shows up in her glovebox: her fingers brush against it while she's smiling at a small town cop, blindly ferreting around for the vehicle registration card. She passes over the extra pistol she keeps there, careful not to let it slide around, and right where her documents are, she feels another scrap of canvas, some lumps where its contents try to peek out, a piece of twine holding it together… Her face falters, and just to keep Johnny Law busy, Bela flashes him a bigger grin, leans  _just so_  to tease him with a bit of cleavage. She gives him her license (one of the fakes, the one that calls her Mina Chandler), the registration; he gives her a warning, but no speeding ticket.

She pulls into a rest area a few miles later and unpacks the hex-bag. It's slightly more advanced than its predecessor — another 'protection from evil' piece, not  _particularly_  special in its design or purpose. …But the components are rarer, put together with more care and more attention to the spellcraft. Even through the simplicity of it, Bela can appreciate how much work whoever made this invested in it.

—A fact that doesn't keep her from salting and burning the thing. She has too many meetings with the sort of creatures this bag's designed to repel; she can't afford to keep it.

The third, Bela finds in Ruby's jeans: her demon shows up for a visit and Bela pulls her deep into a kiss, leads her to the bed, tries feeling her up — and there it is. Her hand ghosts over a lump on Ruby's ass. She lets her fingers drift into Ruby's back pocket, brushes them over the familiar texture of the canvas and the twine. Frowning, Bela yanks it out, holds it between her face and Ruby's, hisses for Ruby to _explain herself_.

" _Oh, please_ ," Ruby huffs. "It's bad enough for us that you actually  _seek Lilith out_  when you don't have to — like I'm gonna let you do her dirty work without protection."

Bela drops it, stamps her heel into the thing. Were they outside, she'd salt and burn it right now — but instead, she gives Ruby another kiss, sucks on her lower lip and bites on it.  _Hard_. "I don't need any extra protection — I can take care of myself. You'll find out just how well if you leave any more of your little  _gifts_. Do I make myself clear?"

Ruby sighs, glances down at the hex-bag, frowns like someone just canceled Christmas. She mutters, "Crystal."

"Good, because I haven't the time tonight to explain further." She curls a finger in Ruby's belt-loop and whispers, "Lose these."


	13. Through A Clear Glass Window.

"What's the worst part about Hell?"

Bela's asked Ruby this before, and every single time, Ruby's refused to give her a direct answer. Even now, Ruby just sighs, pauses for a moment (a  _teasing_ moment, one she drags out just because she  _knows_  that Bela wants it to end)… then resumes brushing her fingers through Bela's hair, toying around with some hair decor she found and wanted to play with, as though nothing happened at all.

"I'm not going to just let this subject go, you realize."

Ruby huffs and divides Bela's hair into segments, starts weaving them together, looping them one over the others and repeating the pattern.

Bela rolls her eyes. "I don't think anyone's braided my hair since I was seven… And giving me the silent treatment when I try to discuss this with you will just force me to keep asking."

Ruby repeats Bela with exact accuracy — save that, rather than imitating Bela, she speaks with a high-pitched, whiny voice, and fakes some Cockney pronunciation so atrociously that she has to be parodying something. If it's not a joke, if that was seriously Ruby's idea of emulating a different accent, then Bela's quite certain she won't be able to respect the legions of Hell ever again, even when she joins their ranks. Their espionage training programs are  _clearly_ lacking.

"Excellent," Bela sighs. "Now you're possessed by the same thing that keeps John Cleese alive — is that even possible? Two spirits possessing someone at the same time?"

"I wouldn't know," Ruby says. "I mean… theoretically, you could have more than one spirit in there, since demons have to share space with the host's soul anyway… But most of us aren't so good at sharing with each other. Or with ghosts. And I don't really know what else can actually possess someone…"

Out of nowhere, a thought occurs and Bela asks: "So… the girl whose body you're borrowing? Is she still in there?"

Ruby goes quiet for a long moment. Tugs a bit too hard on Bela's hair as she finishes the braid and starts working it into a bun, then —  _snap!_  Ruby lets go; Bela's hair falls out of its meticulous design. The hair-tie lands by Bela's feet, split apart, and while she deems it unworthy of even an arched eyebrow, she gets to listen to two solid minutes of Ruby cursing the shoddy craftsmanship in at least four different languages, none of which are English.

This fit dies down when Ruby throws one of her hairbrushes to the floor and, in retaliation, Bela claws at her demon's bare ankle. With a huff, Ruby slouches back down to the bed and combs out the braid, getting Bela's hair back to square one and starting over from there.

"I didn't mean to upset you, sweetheart," Bela says after a while. "But considering what got me into this demonic mess in the first place, I think that I have a right to know whether or not I'm unintentionally doing the same thing to some poor girl from Lord only knows where just because you've  _happened_  to be borrowing her body for the past few months."

With a pensive sigh, Ruby trails her fingers down Bela's neck, rests them on a knot of tension. "I've had sex while my host's soul was still there before," she says. "But this girl's been gone for a while — Not because of me!"

(Bela doesn't smile at this, but she wonders if Ruby had that little outburst because she sensed something off about Bela, some spot of apprehension or a nigh imperceptible lurch in her stomach… And, for a moment, Bela feels light, and airy, and affectionately dazed… the way all the songs and atrocious poems say that falling in love ought to feel like.)

Ruby sighs again, and this one sounds different… heavier, perhaps. "I don't usually put any effort into finding empty bodies to possess, you know," she continues, fussing with the ends of Bela's hair but doing very little with them. "Most demons don't even try. They think it's  _fun_  to have the soul still in there… Like, Azazel's daughter, Belial? …Or, well. I guess she's calling herself Meg these days… Whatever her name is, she's a first-class bitch to the girls she possesses… She rides them hard just for kicks. Likes to brag about it — she made one of her vessels kill his entire family, and that's not even the worst of what she's done… Sam and Dean have run afoul of her—"

Bela loudly clears her throat by way of telling Ruby to leave those nightmares out of the conversation. This gets a chuckle, and a half-hearted swat on the shoulder, and a scolding of,  _Be nice, Bels… they didn't HAVE to save you from that pirate ghost, you know_  — which lets Bela have a laugh herself.

"I'll be nice about them when they stop swaggering around like the world owes them something," Bela says, and leans her head back on the mattress. She knocks into Ruby's leg on the way down, but once she's comfortable, she smirks up at her demon. Ruby smiles, and runs the back of her fingers down Bela's cheek. Bela pauses, considers whether or not to try this style of manipulation, whether or not Ruby  _deserves_  to have her heartstrings pulled this way… No, no, she definitely does.

Bela hums, and nuzzles against Ruby's calf. "I'd be more inclined to grant them lenience if you'd give me a straight answer about Hell, you know."

This extinguishes Ruby's smile. She swats at Bela's forehead — harder than before, but still hesitant — and, with the huff of a child who's just been denied its ice cream, Ruby asks: "Fine. You can have a straight answer. What are you most afraid of finding in Hell — and don't be glib about this, okay? Don't say something snarky like,  _I'm just worried of what the heat's going to do to my hair_  or,  _But what if the company's terrible_ … What are you  _really_  afraid of?"

Bela doesn't pause. She doesn't even need to think about this: "My father."

Ruby tilts her head, furrows her brow, but doesn't ask Bela to elaborate.

"Unless Heaven's in the practice of letting child rapists past the Pearly Gates," Bela explains, "he's going to be down there, right? And Hell devotes an inordinate amount of time to torture…?"

Ruby nods and lets her hand drop off of Bela's cheek, wander down the curve of her neck… And, though Bela half-expects them to turn black, Ruby's eyes stay human-looking, keep their green-grey irises… There's just some unfathomable, distant look about them as she whispers, "Even if he'd gotten into Heaven… you're afraid of him, so he'd be waiting there for you — maybe just an image of him, maybe just a trick, but it'd feel like the real thing to you. And they'd use him to bend you and break you and burn you up, and if you're lucky, you'll start forgetting why having him there hurts so much…"

"And if I'm unlucky…?" Bela's not even certain she wants to know, but she has to ask. She  _needs_  to know this.

"If you're unlucky," Ruby says, idly tracing circles on Bela's collarbone, "sweetheart, you'll get to remember everything."


	14. Happiness Is A Warm Gun.

Ruby always finds her way back to Bela, and no doubt because of this, Bela can't say that she spends that much time worrying over how to find her demon. When errands go wrong, she doesn't worry. She doesn't even keep the components for a summoning spell on-hand, and although she has Ruby's number scribbled down in three different journals, she doesn't put Ruby in her phonebook.

It's nothing personal, she figures. Bela just doesn't bother with most people. She's only kept Dean's number because of what Lilith has in store for him, what she'll need to do unless she can somehow manage to work out of her longterm assignment. The whole thing's too important to Lilith for Bela to hope for much, she realizes this, but… well.

Perhaps she's getting overly sentimental. Perhaps staring down the barrel of Death's gun is making Bela empathize with Dean, with how he's dying, too. He certainly doesn't deserve consideration — not with how he insists on treating her, not when he looks at her like she's trash, not while he struts around the world in that pretty, vintage car, blasting rock music and shooting before he bothers asking questions.

But, whatever idle charm of his gotten to her, Bela would rather not have to do him in. For one thing, he owes her angry sex; for another, she'd hate to destroy the work of art that is his body (even if it's less a Michelangelo, more a Paul Cezanne). Most importantly, though, the world's more interesting with Dean Winchester in it, and the Colt's served its purpose, she presumes. It opened the Devil's Gate, and Lilith got out, accumulated her army… There's really no reason to make a fuss over it.

She knows better than to let her assignment's details slip to anyone, especially not Ruby, not when Lilith wants Ruby's head sauteed up with baby's blood and peppers… But the next time that her demon saunters in, Bela's so worn down that she can't help it.

She's been up for three straight days… Her entire body aches… There's dirt on her face, her clothes, the tangled mess that used to be her hair… Ruby doesn't even go for a kiss, when she shows up, just runs a bath in the motel's shower and helps Bela into it. Being who she is, Ruby has to ask questions, but for once, the monosyllabic answers satisfy her. She eschews Bela's personal toiletries and the complimentary soaps alike, instead cleans Bela up with some floral-scented home-brew of her own devising.

And while Ruby's hands take on a particularly vicious knot in Bela's back, some truth worms its way out: "The lead I was tracking went nowhere… So much for everything I've been through… So much for finding that stupid little pistol…"

Ruby asks, and Bela stops just short of telling her everything. Lilith wants the Colt. She hasn't said why, not that she ever explains anything — "No, no,  _God_  no… That would just make too much sense for her, keeping everyone on the same page… Why do that when you can obfuscate instead?" — and whatever idea's gone and entered the Queen Bitch's rancid mind, Bela can get out of her deal if she gets her hands on that stupid Colt.

"That's the gun I fixed for Sam and Dean," Ruby mutters. "You  _can't_  let her have it, Bels… Trust me. She might not have any plans for it, but the last place that it needs to be is with Lilith and her cronies. We'll get you out of your Deal some other way."

Bela promises to leave the gun alone, and thanks Ruby for not correcting her previous misuse of "obfuscate" — but, as the taste of her lie swishes around her mouth, she's never been gladder that Ruby can't read her mind.


	15. I Don't Care Much.

"You fucking  _didn't_!"

Bela whips around, hand on the Colt's trigger even though she recognizes Ruby's voice. She keeps her expression set, her glare steeled over… She doesn't cock the pistol, though. Just. Can't have a demon-killing gun go off in the face of someone she actually appreciates.

Ruby looks an utter mess — tousled hair, a bloody lip, dirt and random red marks everywhere, rips in her jeans and one up her leather jacket's sleeve, blood stains splattered across her clothes like a Jackson Pollack painting… For all Bela knows, Ruby's just walked out of a slaughterhouse. It wouldn't be a surprise.

And when she gets an eyeful of the pistol, her whole face darkens. She slouches and, at the same time, tenses up, and for being so compactly built, she looks like she could become a storm. She frowns, and her eyes cloud over… Anger radiates off of her…

And in a flash too quick for Bela to react, the gun's on the floor and Ruby has her pinned to the wall.

She knocks her arm against Bela's sternum hard enough to hurt — hard enough to get a nauseating  _thwack_  out of the bone — and it causes enough pain that Bela's calm facade cracks. She gasps. There's not enough air in it, so she gasps again. She tries to let the breath out easily, but it just sounds like a whimper. Not even a dignified whimper. Bela's sounded like this before, but not for ten years… Not even Lilith's made her whimper like her father used to do.

"You know, I thought the Moose and the Moron were just trying to have me on, like it's fucking funny to joke about losing that thing, but for you to just…"

Ruby groans like a roll of thunder; when Bela opens her mouth to protest, all she gets is Ruby's forearm pressing into her neck instead. "Don't you even  _try_  to give me some cute excuse, sweetheart. You _promised me_  you wouldn't go after that gun and then you went and did it anyway… Do you have any idea how hard it is to get someone out of a Deal? How much  _work_  you have to do when they're  _not_ jumping through every hoop that Lilith throws at them?"

Ruby pauses, keeps her arm in place… but it's not until the silence gets awkward that Bela catches onto Ruby's meaning and, instead of speaking, shakes her head, 'no.'

Even though she's  _cooperating_ , Ruby only gives her another foul-sounding sigh. Her eyes flash to their natural black, and her words come out in a growl: "Do you even  _want_  to save your soul, Bela? I mean, as far as I can tell? You  _don't_."

"You're so one-track minded," Bela hisses, "especially since demons are supposed to be  _manipulative_?"

Ruby narrows her eyes, lowers her arm just enough to take it off of Bela's windpipe. "What the Hell are you talking about?"

Leaning down toward her means getting Ruby's arm pressed further, harder into her collarbone… but Bela presses on, gets close enough to skim her lips over the bridge and tip of Ruby's nose. "Crowley and Lilith don't know I've got the gun yet," she says. "I've had it for almost five weeks now and they haven't caught wise. The Winchesters have no idea what to do with it — they think it's just some quick ticket to a one-shot kill… but if it's in  _our_  hands…"

Bela leaves that offer hanging there. She smirks; and Ruby's eyes snap back to their green-grey state. Her grin glints like the edge of a knife. She takes her arm off Bela's chest, snakes her hand behind Bela's neck and nudges her down into a kiss, and whispers, "Oh, you devious, gorgeous little bitch."


	16. Don't Tell Mama.

The problem with demons is twofold: they're never short of surprises, and they have a knack for showing up when they're unwanted.

The problem with Crowley, in particular, is that he never needs to try anything new; he's always the same, underhanded shit, and it works for him, and in working for him, it makes him look like he's changing when nothing's ever different.

In the decade Bela's known him, he's had the smug,  _stupid_  smile that he's wearing now, as he paces around in front of the bed. He's brought it with him every time he's needed to chastise her, or remind her whom it is she serves, or inform her that he's not sure she can complete her next task — She purses her lips and shuffles away from Ruby, pulls the comforter up on her chest while Ruby does similarly with the sheets.

Crowley chuckles, grinning — beaming like the brightest lightbulb in the tanning bed — and he doesn't lose the smirk when Bela snaps at him: "So get on with it, why don't you. Skip the foreplay and go running to the bitch."

He seems surprised by this — furrows his brow, crosses his arms like a petulant child and everything. Not genuine surprise, none of it is, but he's putting up a good enough facade. "You really do think so little of me, don't you, darling?" he drawls. Bela's briefly thankful for the motel's ugly carpet: it keeps his shoes from hitting the floor like the snare before an execution. His smirk grows a little wider as he moves to stand by the bedside table, as he ghosts his fingers up and down the pistol's barrel. "I wouldn't want to leave you floundering out here… Can you believe what I'd be forced to do if she knew what you and this one have been up to behind her back?"

"I'm right here, Dwayne Hoover," Ruby huffed. "What's with the bullshit sales pitch?"

His eyes flick to their natural red, and glint like the metal of the gun he so clearly wants to pick up, the one he's not taking for reasons Bela doesn't want to know. Regardless of what she wants, he gives Ruby an answer: "Because I'm not just trying to pitch you  _anything_ , my little Ellen Degenerate… at least, not yet. Nothing's come to mind precisely, but… I'd be willing to make some requests… Perhaps we could make a deal."

This may be the most pointless question Bela's ever asked: "What do you want?"

Even without hearing the answer, even without glancing over at Crowley, even without seeing the nausea on Ruby's face, the ghosts rising up on her expression… Bela knows they can't get out of this with the status quo intact. They only have one thing to sell.

The Colt was their leverage. Their bargaining chip… the one thing that put them on even footing with Lilith and her entourage, with the Winchesters and whatever force keeps them alive, no matter how many times they should have died by now.

The Colt was their one way to fight back.

And as Crowley pockets it, strolls out the door, Bela reaches for Ruby's hand. Just hopes she's made the right call.


	17. Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up).

They're four weeks out from Bela's date with the Hellhounds when the realization really hits her.

Ruby hasn't left her side, at least not for long, since Crowley came and took the Colt back home to Lilith. Bela suspects that Sam and Dean still need the demon sitting on their collective shoulder… But it's not like they pose a threat. Not to Bela's ability to keep her hands on Ruby.

But still… the fear comes worming up from Bela's stomach. It writhes around inside her lungs until she has to pull over at a New Jersey rest area — There's no bathrooms or even a building with vending machines in it. Just a little roadside parking lot, overlooking a gorge full up of natural beauty, trees regrowing their leaves and pretty things… Reasons to be happy — they're plenty of reason to be happy.

If you're into that sort of thing, finding little miracles in everything or seeing the gorgeous design, the perfect order in how things come together.

Except that Bela can't appreciate that: she has Ruby in the passenger seat, dozing (even though demons don't need to sleep), some Fiona Apple on the stereo or other… And she can't appreciate everything. The noontime sun hits all these greens, and blues, and all that Bela sees is grey.

All she hears is empty echoes. The growl of nearby engines, sounding like dogs — one pair of ugly tourists hops out of their minivan with a real dog, and it doesn't matter that Bela sees a Corgi when she whips around. She heard the barking and thought her heart might jump out of her chest:  _the Hounds aren't coming yet_ , she tells herself, trying to steady her breaths, making them long and meditative and this doesn't give her any kind of help.  _They're not due yet, they can't be here yet…_

She's on the verge of tears when Ruby's fingers toy at the whispy, fine hairs by her ear, and Ruby's lips whisper at her cheek, press kisses on her skin, tell her over and over again that she'll be fine, that everything's alright. "Just be brave, sweetheart," she says softly. "Be brave. We'll pull it all together…"


	18. Lake Of Fire.

Waiting in Ruby's arms pays off, eventually.

Not in terms of hearing what they have to do to rip up Bela's contract. She still hasn't heard that — Ruby's playing it so close to the chest that Bela can have her lips on Ruby's tits and still come out knowing nothing more than the sensation of flicking Ruby's erect nipple underneath her tongue. Which isn't so horrid… but it's not what Bela wants to get.

She stumbles into some answers when they're alone one night, reclining on another horrid mattress in some trashy no-tell motel, when Bela's curled up at Ruby's breasts, resting her head underneath Ruby's chin and feeling Ruby's icicle fingers tracing circles on her shoulder-blades. She kisses at Ruby's neck, bites at Ruby here, or there, keeping the contact light, wondering if her teeth could even make a dent in her demon's skin, let alone break it…

The question stumbles out of her mouth before she can think to stop it: "D'you ever plan on telling me what to expect from Hell? Or do I just get a surprise when I show up Downstairs?"

"You don't want to know, Bels…" Ruby's fingers pause in their ministrations, and when they start again, they don't just trace: she seeks out the places where Bela's sore, where tension's gotten stored up and started to settle in, and she rubs at them. After a silent moment, she sighs. "But you need to, don't you?"

"Unless things start to go our way, I'd say it's high on my list of desired information."

"It's fire," Ruby says, her voice soft and almost inaudible. "Fire, and darkness, and cold… You can see the burning. Sometimes, you'll feel it on you or smell your own searing flesh… but it doesn't matter. Everything stays so cold that you'll start getting burns from the ice, eventually. And there are other souls down there in the Pit, torturing you or suffering with you… And the only thing they ever want to do is break you into pieces and make you something new."

Her fingers move up to Bela's hair now, twirling around in the tendrils at the bottom — and Bela raises up her voice in protest now, just to point out that Ruby's making implications, sure, but she can't just intimate and refuse to explain herself. She can't just say that they want to make Bela something new without making it seem like.

She kisses Bela's forehead and whispers, "They'll make you into a demon, sweetheart. Remember that? Give them an inch and they'll make you just as broken and twisted as the rest of us…"


	19. Weep, Bride, Weep.

Three weeks out and there's nothing more that Bela knows to do: Ruby still won't tell her anything; she swears that she's working on the contract, and that she'll get Bela free from the fate waiting for her at the end.

'Nothing' becomes Ruby's favorite word as the days keep going… The changing season makes the daylight drag on longer, and the clock ticks louder, and before Bela knows it, she's wasted two hours pawing around at research that doesn't come together. And all Ruby says to here is  _nothing… nothing… nothing… nothing…_ That there's nothing left on the laundry list of tasks — nothing much to do, nothing that anyone needs to do but her, nothing that Bela can help with and nothing that Bela needs to worry about.

All her words try to sound comforting — Bela can tell that, even when her attempts are half-baked and even when Ruby's talking without paying attention to her — but they grate on Bela's ears like the same things that she used to hear, the nonsense that her father whispered at her behind the closed door of his bedroom: _Don't even try to go after help, Abby daring… No one's going to believe you anyway… There's nothing you can do to help yourself… There's nothing you can do at all…_

Hearing these from anybody hurts like someone's jammed a set of claws into Bela's chest and wrenched them around her insides, trying to jerk everything out and leave her a bloody mess. Hearing them from Ruby makes her want time to speed up, or go running for Crowley's hounds themselves.

There's nothing she can do… There must be something she can do, but Ruby hasn't said a thing and, when she thinks on it for herself, Bela can't come up with anything.

"You know… if you're feeling helpless, there's probably a reason for that…"

Trembling all over, feeling weak from head to shaking hands to unsteady knees and weak ankles, Bela looks up into Crowley's smug, awful, smirking face. She wants to punch him… just claw her way up off the bed and deck him in his teeth… but she can't manage to curl her fingers up in a fist. She can't manage even  _thinking_  of standing up; it makes her stomach churn.

For once, Crowley's smirk falters into something that, in his vague, distant, Crowley sort of fashion, resembles sympathy… or Bela thinks it does, anyway. Underneath his gaze, she feels herself pale, and the only thing she wants to do is curl up on herself and run away… But Crowley's thick fingers drum on her scalp, brush over Bela's roots and down the side of her head… He shushes her, whispers some incantation in a language she can't recognize…

She remembers how he found her back in London, all those years ago, and she thinks that he might not mean for this, but that the half-embrace of his hand is warmer than anything else she could find. That there's more comfort here than anywhere else.

"I can't fight it, can I?" she whispers. She hates the crack in her voice and the shameful heat pricking at her eyes as tears start welling up.

He shakes his head. "Do I think you deserve it?" he says, and shrugs, pulls a noncommittal face that's far too silly for the moment. "Well, yes and no — I don't know that I've ever seen more understandable motivations for calling on a Crossroads Demon, and the service you've given us, of course, has been predominantly motivated by a desire to survive… But do you think any of your other behavior's merited going to Heaven?"

Bela tries to smirk, but the expression's dead before her lips have really moved. Still, she points out: "The Bible's suspiciously silent on the matter of Sapphic entanglements."

"Because even God loves ogling a lesbian," Crowley deadpans. "I'm well aware. So, you're free on that technicality, but… well, let us not forget all of the lying. The cheating. The stealing. I'd suppose that taking orders from Mummy Dearest constitutes the worship of false idols, and I know for a fact that Ruby's made you take the Lord's name in vain more than we can even begin to count… Why, in my day, that sort of behavior brought down the Almighty Wrath on entire kingdoms…"

"Yes, I'm sure it was an act of God that kept the Scots so preoccupied with their precious sheep."

He chuckles at this, but still tells her: "Wrong day, darling — off by a good deal, actually. But no matter… Who's going to take herself a long, hot shower, cry out all those nasty, troublesome little feelings, and regroup a bit? Who's going to be ready when I come calling next?" Smirking, he points out: "If the answer to that isn't you, then… we may have some trouble to work out, my dear."


	20. Exquisite Corpse.

He hangs around while Ruby's off, neck-deep in Bela has no idea what, and nominally, Crowley's just there to whisper in her ear and see to it that Lilith's will gets carried out… But he perches on Bela's shoulder as though he wants to keep her safe, looks over all the work she does like there's more to this than the investment that he has in sending her soul Downstairs.

"There's nothing wrong with curiosity about what's coming, you know," he pipes up from the front seat one night. Bela's speeding down the highway, chasing after another job and trying not to think that it might be one of her last… trying not to think that it might be her last job, period.

And she wants Ruby to be sitting next to her. She wants to hear  _Ruby's_  voice offering suggestions for what Bela can do with her last moments on this rock… but Bela will take Crowley, if she has no other choice. There's nothing wrong with him— she can't trust anything he says, but at least she can trust that he'll never be a voice of honesty in her life. So she just supposes that she prefers to know how the Hell the Pit will get to her, if she gives it too much ability to do so.

"Things have changed a good deal since Lilith worked me over personally…" he goes on, tapping his foot in time with the soul music he insisted on playing while he's with her. "I mean, those  _were_  the days… We had so much more time to personalize things, back before Judah fell."

Bela wrinkles her nose. "Judah? As in… the other half of the Kingdom of Israel?"

Crowley nods. "Naturally. …What? Do you honestly think that Fergus Roderick McLeod from the middle of bloody nowhere could end up as the Crossroads King. …Goodness, no. I've been around so much longer than that." He pauses, licks at his lip and fusses with Bela's phone. "Incidentally, this here makes you about the only person who's heard that in a while."

She sighs, floors the accelerator. There's no one around to pull her over and, anyway, hearing her engine go makes her stomach feel better. "So, does anybody know the real you? Or do you just put all your energy into keeping that from happening."

"Well, I don't know, kitten," he tells her with a smirk. "How much of the real Abigail Talbot have you let your little girlfriend see — or is that asking for a bit too much?"

Bela swallows… She bites on her lower lip. And she tries to find one, but she doesn't have a good answer on hand for that question. Mostly because he's right. She knows he is and, worse than that, he knows it, too.


	21. Won't Want For Love.

His words are still on her mind when Bela finally gets another audience with Ruby. The demon shows up out of nowhere while Bela just wants to be alone. Go figure: she stops thinking about Ruby, plans an evening to herself, and the bitch comes back like it's nothing whatever.

She kisses Bela like it's nothing whatever.

They hold each other fast, pressing body into body until there's barely space enough for a breath between them… Ruby's hands fall easily to Bela's hips… Her fingers tease at the hem of Bela's skirt, the elastic of her panties, the unprotected skin of her thighs… And Bela lets Ruby think that she's getting whatever it is she expects tonight, and that yes, of course, it's  _nothing whatever_ … But Bela catches her demon's wrist when Ruby's fingers scrape too close to her underwear, seek to get in and walk along her walls, her clit.

She asks if Ruby's still curious about what put them in this mess, what her father did to her — because she knows that Daddy Talbot played with bad-touching her, but doesn't Ruby want to know why Bela saw no other option but selling her soul? And once she has Ruby's go-ahead, Bela tells the story in horrifying detail, lets her memories come to the forefront, even though she's kept them down for so long… She punctuates it with with kisses, smacking her lips into her demon's, biting with intent to wound and not to tease — She finally breaks something of Ruby's, splits her lip just enough that Bela can feel it underneath her tongue…

Ignoring all pretenses, she bites down harder. Sucks on the injury. Tastes the thick, warm, coppery blood — feels something about it that's ever so slightly wrong about it — Maybe it's how Bela's heart starts racing like there's a prize at the end of its course, or maybe it's how she gets a rush in her head that leaves her feeling stronger, that chases away the ghastly memories of her father's poisonous embrace, the way he filled her and ripped her and ignored her tears, made her swear she wouldn't tell and made her believe that telling wouldn't help her anyway…

Bela bites on Ruby's lip again. Sucks harder. Hopes to fucking God that she leaves a bruise — finally, Ruby shoves her off and she hits the wall. Ruby's black eyes flash over her meat-suit's, and she demands to know just what the fuck Bela thinks she's doing, does she have any idea how much demon blood can fuck a person up and excuse Ruby if she's wrong, but didn't Bela want to get out of going to Hell?

Bela chuckles. Scoffs. "Please, sweetheart… I'm not getting out of this and you know it."

She repeats it. When Ruby tries to ask what the fuck she's talking about, Bela just laughs and slumps into the wall — she repeats that again, the fact that she's damned… If she has to, then she'll keep saying it until they both believe it.


	22. Pirate Jenny.

Two weeks out, and midnight finds them in a diner, still not talking about the biting or what Bela said or any of that. There's probably not enough of a reason to justify talking, not with how quickly the sand's emptying out of the hourglass… They've only stopped for this because Ruby thought Bela looked too pale to keep driving. So she's drinking some pathetic swill that calls itself coffee while Ruby chows down French fries like they'll run screaming from her plate should she stop to breathe.

Whether or not it's relevant, Bela's wondered this for a while: "Don't those have  _salt_  in them, demon?" she points out, tapping off an email on her phone's keyboard… Lord only knows why Crowley asked her to reply this way. Or how she wandered into a diner that's got wifi… She must have stumbled into some of Sam and Dean's outrageous luck.

Fancy that, her getting lucky when she's not that far out from being puppy chow.

"Who the Hell cares?" Ruby moans as she takes down another three of them, slips them into her mouth like she's trying to deep-throat them and licks her fingers with a flourish. She gets an A for effort, at least — earnestly getting off on the taste of them is a good sight more creative than trying to make those rancid-looking things sensual. "Seriously, Bels — they're deep-fried crack and you know what? I'm fine as long as there's not  _too_  much salt on them. Some places dump the whole shaker and yeah, no I can't handle that… But when it's a reasonable amount? For us, it's just like… burning hot Vindaloo curry."

"Deep-fried Vindaloo curry that's as addictive as crack. Thrilling. My, my, what a life I'm looking forward to on the other side of Hell."

Ruby's face falters, and she pouts as though Bela's just gone and canceled Christmas. "What'd we say about talking like that—"

"I scarcely need to be reminded of what we said," she snaps. "But even if your plan comes through, what happens then? I'm off one hook and… what? Lilith only wants to drag me Downstairs herself for managing to weasel out of her contract. And let's say that, by some miracle — I don't know, maybe God decides to take an active interest in anything and, for whatever reason, he likes me that day… So, whatever happens, and I survive the Queen Bitch herself, and what's my life going to be, then?"

"It could be anything; that's kind of the point… I mean. You'll get to be alive — on the run, maybe, but…  _alive_ , though… You won't have to become one of us… You'll have me with you—"

"Because that's been ever so reliable up to this point. You've been completely, entirely forthcoming about everything… You've never wandered in or out of things for no apparent reason at all… Hell—" Bela pauses. Smirks. Looks her demon over and hopes her lips have the perfect, knife-like edge to them. "I mean, really, Ruby: you might as well strap on some fetish wings and a halo at this point, right? They're probably ready to throw you out of the demon club anyway."

Bela glances around, just to make sure that no one else is listening. They're not. She huffs and pilfers Ruby's last two fries — incidentally, the ones out of the whole bunch that look the least putrescent. And, with a sigh, she goes on: "No matter what happens, there's no way I won't end up there… I'm not a good person. Quite frequently, I'm the exact opposite. And I can accept that. Let it happen sooner, for all I care—"

"Why didn't you listen to me and eat something — Bela, you… you don't know what you're saying—"

" _Don't I, though_? And shouldn't that be  _my_  call to make?"

"We can work this out, and—"

"I hope my father's down there, too. And my mother. And any of their since-deceased friends who never even thought they could be so wretched. I hope they're all down there, just waiting for me to show…" Bela laughs — a low, cold-sounding noise — and her smirk deepens when Ruby flinches. "They wouldn't even need to torture me, if I got that… Bring all those bastards to me and let me tear them to pieces; I'll do it — oh, don't give me that face. I think I deserve this chance, you know—"

"You don't know what you're saying, Bela," she whispers as though she's trying to convince herself, and this makes Bela laugh again.

"I know  _exactly_  what I'm saying," she hisses. "I'm saying that I've been  _coping_  with what happened for ten years, now. Coping, dealing with it, and marvelously so, I might add — but I didn't get closure. No one helped me… not unless they were you and Crowley, and I don't see  _that_  ending with any decent mental health. And true, I could've been so much worse off, but…"

She drains the last of her coffee, lets the mug clink on the table. She leans in closer to Ruby, and Ruby tries to lose herself in the diner's bench… With a flash of her teeth, Bela whispers, "Why shouldn't I be allowed some fucking vengeance, too?"


	23. In Cold Irons Bound.

"Coward."

Bela's packing up — she knows where the boys will be. She needs to get back on the road, and soon — but she still drops everything, and whips around, and wrinkles her nose at Ruby, leaning against the doorframe like she might've done a few months back. God, what the Hell is this? A parade of people trying to ruin Bela's last hours on Earth by insisting on their fucking presence?

"Your boyfriend's idiot brother just left," Bela huffs, eyes the hole in the door from where Dean's shot just missed her. "Don't you think you ought to be talking to the two of them? They're actually interested in your 'get out of Hell free' cards — if they ever really existed."

Ruby flinches, crosses her arms over her chest… but she keeps coming in Bela's direction. She only pauses to kick the door closed behind her. Whatever she's playing had probably has some, 'I'm here for you' nonsense underlying it — as though that could convince Bela to listen to her now.

Ruby pauses. Sighs. Shakes her head and lets her shoulders slump. "You're still trying to play by Lilith's rules for getting out of this," she points out. "You're still… basically hooking, except that hookers get _paid_ , so… you maybe want to stow the bullshit and go back to the part where  _you're a coward_?"

She knows that it won't do anything, but nevertheless, Bela palms her pistol — ghosting her hand over the cool metal keeps her grounded. Reminds her that it's not real, everything she thinks she's seeing or hearing…

Ruby's footfalls can't sound like her father's because there's a carpet here, and not a hardwood floor.

There's no one laughing in her ear, and there's certainly not a source for the suffocating stench of  _Daddy's_  old cologne…

The dried out taste of shame in her mouth might be real, but it's hardly worth considering — especially when Bela glances back up at Ruby and doesn't see the snarky blonde she's come to know. Instead, she sees a face that had to be human, once… before it got all black and mangled… burned up and clawed apart…

Only one part of it looks whole at all, and that's Ruby's eyes: jet black and gleaming, polished stones among the wreck that is the rest of her.

"Your  _face_ …" Bela whispers, hating that she can't find something else to say for herself.

"Get ready for it, baby," Ruby says, and looks like a cartoon skeleton when she moves anything, and more so when she talks. "It's coming to you now, too, because… hey, guess what? You're a  _coward_. You could've lived, and tried to be happy, and done anything you wanted… But, no, right? Forget all the potential kicking around in you, it's just… so much easier to die."

"Damn right." Bela's smirk doesn't come back as fully as she wants it to — when she closes it, her suitcase doesn't thump loud enough to please her, either — but when she pulls Ruby deep into their last kiss, her demon's lips still taste the same. That's something positive, she guesses — and fingering Ruby's hair, she whispers, "See you in Hell, sweetheart."


	24. Highway 61, Revisited.

Ruby doesn't know what's worse: the state of Bela's corpse when she finds it, or the fact that a bunch of Hellhounds tore through this motel and no one even noticed. Fucking Muggles.

Thinking that word feels dirty now, considering she learned it from Sam, who learned it from some stupid kids' books about a boy wizard or something. But it's appropriate for people who didn't even notice someone dying. Appropriately ugly and nauseating.

Ruby doesn't bother with the blood on the scene, just kneels and nudges Bela's eyelids down. There's probably no reason to get fussy. Knowing Bela, she checked in with an alias and knowing Muggles, this won't be the first time this place had a room get messy. Ruby carries her girl's body down to her car. Settles her in the backseat, brushes a stray lock of hair off her face, and drives until she's far enough away from the place, from anything at all.

She and Bela head down a little hill, into a thicket of trees, and Ruby lays her girl to rest beneath an ancient-looking oak. A cross made out of sticks and twine marks Bela Talbot's grave, and a demon's the only one to mourn for her. With a sigh, Ruby settles at the tree's base, stares at her dirt mound and tries to recall any prayers she knows that don't involve that bastard Lucifer.

In the end, she takes a handful of the earth and sprinkles it over the ground, whispers, "Well… you always did like to be lonely, sweetheart."


End file.
